These Bloody Eyes of Mine
by DovahKaaz
Summary: What if one villager took it too far? No longer a happy-go-lucky idiot, how will the Kyuubi jinchuuriki cope? Image courtesy of gangsterg at deviantart.


Hello! I'm new, and this is my first story. **This chapter is very dark, **I should warn you, so know what you're getting into. I haven't decided on a pairing/pairings yet, so if you leave a review and would like to suggest a certain pairing, please do! I am open to any ideas! But not SasuNaru.

**No. There shall be NONE of that. **

I'm also very flexible to new ideas, so suggest away!

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A young boy, no older than six years old, desperately dashed through the buildings, effortlessly navigating the darkness that suffocated the village. He had bright eyes, usually full of mirth, but now stared, searchingly, forward, looking for any means of escape. Neon yellow hair, unusual for Konoha, sprouted from his crown. He was dressed in the ragged scraps that the orphanage had grudgingly given him before kicking him out.

He held his wheezing sides as he ran, trying to massage the cramps that formed. Beads of sweat trickled down his face and pooled in the six slashes on his cheeks. His cerulean blue eyes darted from side to side, taking note of all the shadows, and avoiding the ones that moved. Kunai, kitchen knives, shuriken, and miscellaneous junk whizzed by his fleeing head, the more deadly of the projectiles having lost their characteristic accuracy from the drunken shinobi that threw them.

Lights appeared in the few inhabited windows of the poor district he ran through, but were quickly extinguished as the frightened people behind them saw what had piqued their curiosity. Ragged, drunken men leapt out from the shadows, slurring curses, and all too eager to partake in the blood-hunt their comrades called them to.

The child gasped as a knife finally grabbed a lucky hit, courtesy of a sober civilian woman who had joined the chase for the fun. The rabid mob roared and howled with approval as they saw the weapon hit, and the dark blood that spattered the ground after it. The boy wailed in pain and despair. No one was coming to help. No one ever did.

"Demon!"

"Murderer!"

"Thief!"

"Bastard!" The mob shouted, even more colorful and endearing names flying forth from their mouths.

The orphan grabbed his ears and wailed again. More rubbish tailed him, and he picked up the pace. He ran past trashcans, waste, and sleeping bodies, in between the dark structures that stood so hauntingly at the side, almost like spectators, their burning eyes the candles in the windows. Shadows rushed after him, gaining as he tired, and the mob grew in both morale and numbers.

"Gah!" he shrieked as something, no someone, heavy bowled him over. Trembling, he lay there as he tried to get his lungs to function again, but only drawing ragged breaths. The heavy thing shifted, and then vanished. Sighing with his regained breath, he staggered back up to his feet, only to be kicked sharply over to the wall. He hacked up blood, and tried to scramble away from the people who held him in such utter loathing. The orphan stared at his tormentors with wide, shockingly, blue eyes oozing bloody tears that seemed so out of place on his young face.

A child's face should never have been so thin, nor should his body have been so frail. He drew his bony knees up to his chest as some form of protection. The bloodthirsty shadows only stalked closer. They always did once the sun relinquished its hold on the horizon.

The darkness and the night had never been his friend. Once daylight passed, and the dark part of the village came to life, he was not safe. Shadows, once home to the welcoming reaches of sleep, grew claws and teeth and a hunger for his blood in particular, as was evidenced now by the bloody tears running down his face.

"W-why?" he stuttered, looking up at those who wished him pain and death. "What have I ever done to you?"

A kunoichi, pale face flushed with alcohol's embrace, walked into his line of view. "What have you done?" she hissed, hand closing around his throat and lifting him up the wall. "What haven't you done?" she shrieked, spittle flying in his face.

"But, I-I've never hurt any of you!"

"Shut up, demon," she hissed again, raising him to eye level. "You may have taken the form of a human child, Kyuubi, but we know it's you. Kitsune are masters of disguise after all!" she cackled, a manic glint in the face framed by pink hair. "You even cry blood, but as if we need more proof that you're from hell," she said, tracing a finger down his cheek and brought it to her mouth. "You can taste the evil…" she smirked.

The boy's eyes widened and his hands scrabbled at the rough stone behind him.

"And I will pay you ten times over for the pain you've caused us!" she roared, revealing a kunai in her hand. The villagers roared their approval, hooting and hollering. The pale moonlight reflected off of the sharp piece of metal that was waved tauntingly before his eyes. "Wouldn't you just love to have this in your hand?" the kunoichi purred. "But since we've taken your true form, you had to possess a child! You don't have any natural weapons now!"

She let go of his throat and allowed him to slump to the ground, panting and massaging his throat. The boy tried to inch away from the insane ninja.

"Oh, no you don't!" she cackled and drove the kunai into his side. He shrieked in pain and fell to the ground. Picking him up by his dirty shock of blonde hair, she dragged her victim over the eagerly awaiting mob. "Time to kill the demon!" she roared triumphantly, raising him up for the assembled people to see.

"Kill him!"

"Give him hell!"

Many more people joined in with shouts for his blood. Wails of revenge for their fallen husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters also joined the chorus. The boy was dragged past the mob, people spitting and hitting him as he went. Several men stooped and picked him up, and none too kindly dragged him to a post in the middle of the street. The boy, who was in a stupor from blood loss, jolted awake when he felt his hands being bound to the post.

"And now, we will get our revenge!" the crowd roared its approval once more at the kunoichi's words. Scattering small tinder near him, the woman set a twig on fire with a small Katon jutsu. Raising the delicately smoldering wood, she set it near the base of the post. The flames quickly took hold and licked up the side of the wood with a vengeance. The boy squirmed and whimpered as he began to feel the heat, and his cries soon became screams as the flames bit into him, eagerly consuming his flesh. The red fire danced across his ragged clothes and his skin.

The villagers laughed and cheered at the boy's crying and screams. "Isn't revenge sweet?" she purred, her voice as soft as silk. A shadow alerted her that all the activity had alerted the few people who would less than approve of the demon's treatment. Masks, robes…

"Shit! It's the ANBU!" A villager cried, scurrying down an alley. More dismayed cries joined his, and the people scattered like rats. ANBU dove into the terrified excuses for humans and restrained all the perpetrators they could catch.

"What is going on here?!" a new presence roared, killing intent laced in his words. The crowd shuddered, and reluctantly parted, revealing the post. A burned and blackened orphan slumped against it, apparently dead, and covered in ashes as the last of the flames died. The figure swooped down and sprinted to the boy. "N-no… Naruto!" The figure approached the boy, and, even though he knew it was futile, he pressed his fingers to the boy's neck to check for a pulse. To his shock and eternal delight, he found a heartbeat, and though it was a weak, sluggish heartbeat, it meant that the boy was alive. "ANBU!" the Sandaime yelled. "Take him to the hospital, NOW!" he roared at the elite shinobi's reluctance.

"And tell them that if they refuse to treat him, or half-ass it, I will give them to T & I as an experiment!" he bellowed.

The ANBU shunshinned off, abused six-year-old in tow.

The Hokage turned his malicious gaze to the civilians and ninjas on the ground pissing themselves in fear at his killing intent, and said low and deadly, "Now, as you're all at the very least accomplices in the attempted murder and torture of a minor, you have all been sentenced to execution. But should someone tell me who organized this, and is responsible, that someone has a ten percent chance of life in prison." At the silence that followed, he raged further at them, "And if no one tells me, then I'll give the lot of you to Iwa in the name of 'science!'" The captured villagers paled.

"Well, I'm waiting!" the Hokage roared, taking a step towards the man nearest to him, righteous fury in his eyes, and his hands in the beginnings of a handseal. Said villager was squirming away from the God of Shinobi as fast as he could. "The punishment could be torture and then death too…" Sandaime mused aloud, hands forming seals faster than any but a well-trained shinobi would be blind to what he was about to do. Unfortunately, there were quite a few of those on the ground and soiling themselves as the handseals reached their climax.

"Wait!" a voice cried.

"Hmm…?" the Sandaime turned. "One of these _cowards_ is speaking up?" He laid his gaze on a man in his late thirties, someone who had lost his fiancé in the Kyuubi attacked if he recalled correctly.

The black-haired man was visibly shaken at being the center of attention. "Y-yes. I can tell you who organized this. Just please don't kill me!" the man pleaded, tears streaming down his face, and his voice reaching a most uncomfortable volume. "I was trying to save the village from the demon!"

The Hokage huffed and looked at the man. "Not only do you believe that what you did was right," he began, "you also nearly _destroyed_ an innocent boy!" he spat, venom in his voice. "Why you beg to be spared is a mystery. Any self-respecting human being would slit their wrists at what you've just done." He paused, and then a wicked smirk came over his wizened features that did not, in any way, fit the usually kind-natured man calling out their judgement. "Even demons do not burn their young alive."

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_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Naruto shivered and cried out, hands flying to his face as if to shield him from the horrors of his life at the hands of the people he unknowingly protected from a demon. He became aware of water, cool, soothing water, washing away his burns, bruises, and lacerations. It seeped into him, shielding him from the pain of his burned flesh. The orphan sighed, calm, and at peace, until a low and rumbling growl came from directly ahead of him.

"**Boy, we have much to… discuss."**

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****Please review if you liked it, or if you found a problem! I'm sure there's one somewhere!


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